Bernard Cornwell – The Bloody Ground (страница 10)

He began to sift through the heaps of paper. There were receipts for food, receipts for ammunition, and urgent letters asking for the receipts to be signed and returned to the relevant departments. There were pay books, lists, amendments to lists, and prison rosters from all the military jails in Richmond. Not every man in the Special Battalion was from the Yellowlegs; at least a fifth had been drafted in from the prisons, thus leavening the cowards with crooks. Under the prison rosters Starbuck found a letter addressed to Major Edward Maitland from the Richmond State Armory acknowledging that the Special Battalion was to be equipped with rifles and requesting that the twenty boxes of muskets be returned forthwith. there was a grudging tone to the letter, suggesting that Maitland had used his influence to have the despised muskets replaced with modern weapons and Starbuck, knowing he would have to fight the battle all over again, sighed. He put the letter aside to find, beneath it, yet another letter, this one addressed to Chas. Holborrow and signed by the Reverend Simeon Potter of Decatur, Georgia. Starbuck leaned back to read it.

The Reverend Potter, it seemed, had the superintendence of the prison chaplaincies in the State of Georgia and had written to his old acquaintance—he seemed no more than an acquaintance and scarcely a friend—Charles Holborrow, to beg his help in the matter of his second son, Matthew. The letter, written in deliberate strokes in a dark black ink, irresistibly reminded Starbuck of his own father’s handwriting. Matthew, the letter said, had been a sore trial to his dear mother, a disgrace to his family’s name, and a shame to his Christian upbringing. Though educated at the finest academies in the south and enrolled in Savannah Medical School, Matthew Potter had insisted upon the paths of iniquity. “Ardent liquor has been his downfall,” the Reverend Potter wrote, “and now we hear he has taken a wife, poor girl, and, furthermore, has been ejected from his regiment because of continual drunkenness. I had apprenticed him to a cousin of ours in Mississippi, hoping that hard work would prove his salvation, but instead of entering upon his duties he insisted upon engaging in Hardcastle’s Battalion, but even as a soldier, it seems, he could not be trusted. It pains me to write thus, but in begging your help I owe you a duty of truthfulness, a duty thrice burdened by my faith in Christ Jesus, to Whom I daily pray for Matthew’s repentance. I also recall a service I was once able to perform on your behalf, a service you will doubtless recollect clearly, and in recompense for that favor I would ask that you find employment for my son who is no longer welcome under my roof.” Starbuck grinned. Lieutenant Matthew Potter, it was clear, was a ton of tribulation and Starbuck wondered what service the Reverend Simeon Potter had rendered to make it worth Holborrow’s while to accept the Lieutenant. That favor had been subtly emphasized in the Reverend Potter’s letter, suggesting that Holborrow’s debt to the preacher was considerable. “I believe there to be good in Matthew,” the letter finished, “and his commanding officer commended his behavior at Shiloh, but unless he can be weaned from liquor then I fear he is doomed to everlasting hellfire. My wife unites with me in sending our prayers for your kind aid in this sad business.” A note, evidently in Holborrow’s handwriting, had been penned at the bottom of the letter. “I’d be thankful if you could employ him.” Maitland must have said yes, and Starbuck wondered how tangible Holborrow’s thanks had been.

The door opened and a rebellious Lucifer brought in a tall glass of lemonade. “I was told to bring this, Lieutenant Potter,” he said sourly, stressing the false name with a mocking pronunciation.

“You don’t like it here, Lucifer?” Starbuck asked.

“He beats his people,” Lucifer said, jerking his head toward the sound of Holborrow’s voice. “You ain’t thinking of staying here, are you?” he asked with alarm, seeing how comfortably Starbuck’s boots rested on the edge of the major’s desk.

“For a short while,” Starbuck said. “I reckon I’ll learn more as Lieutenant Potter than I ever could as Major Starbuck.”

“And what if the real Mister Potter comes?”

Starbuck grinned. “Be one hell of a tangle, Lucifer.”

Lucifer sniffed. “He ain’t beating me!”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t. And we won’t be here long.”

“You’re crazy,” Lucifer said. “I should have kept going north. I’d rather be preached at in a contraband camp than be living in a place like this.” Lucifer sniffed his disgust and went back to the kitchens, leaving Starbuck to hunt through the rest of the papers. None of the battalion lists tallied exactly, but there seemed to be around a hundred and eighty men in the battalion. There were four captains—Dennison, Cartwright, Peel, and Lippincott—and eight sergeants, one of whom was the belligerent Case, who had joined the battalion just a month before.

Sally came to the office after a half hour. She closed the door behind her and laughed mischievously. “Hell, Nate, ain’t this something?”

Starbuck stood and gestured at the mess in the room. “I’m beginning to feel sorry for Lieutenant Potter, whoever the hell Lieutenant Potter is,” he said.

“You staying on here?” Sally asked.

“Maybe one night.”

“In that case,” Sally said, “I’m saying good-bye to my dearest husband and then the major’s going to take me in his coach back to the city and I just know he’s going to ask me to take supper with him. I’ll say I’m too tired. You sure you want to stay?”

“I’d look an idiot telling him who I am now,” Starbuck said. “Besides, there must be something to discover in all these papers.”

“You discover how the hog’s making his money,” Sally said. “That’d be real useful.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Watch that Captain Dennison, Nate, he’s a snake.”

“He’s the one with the pretty face, right?”

She grimaced. “I thought it had to be syphilis, but it ain’t ’cos he ain’t shaking or babbling like a loon. Must be nothing but a skin disease. I hope it hurts.”

Starbuck grinned. “Begged you for a kiss, did he?” he guessed.

“I reckon he wants more than a kiss, did he?” he guessed.

“I reckon he wants more than a kiss,” she grimaced, then touched Starbuck’s cheek. “Be good, Matthew Potter.”

“And you, Emily Potter.”

A few minutes later Starbuck heard the jingle of trace chains as the major’s carriage was brought to the front of the house. There was the sound of good-byes being said, then the carriage clattered away.

And Starbuck suddenly felt lonely.

A hundred miles north of Starbuck, in a valley where corn grew tall between stands of thick trees, a fugitive crouched in a thicket and listened for sounds of pursuit. The fugitive was a tall, fleshy young man who was now severely hungry. He had lost his horse at the battle fought near Manassas four days before and, with the beast, he had lost a saddlebag of food and so he had gone hungry these four days, all but for some hardtack he had taken from a rebel corpse on the battlefield. Now, a dozen miles north of the battlefield and with his belly aching with hunger, the fugitive reluctantly gnawed at a cob of unripe corn and knew his bowels would punish him for the diet. He was tired of the war. He wanted a decent hotel, a hot bath, a soft bed, a good meal, and a bad woman. He could afford all those things for around his belly was a money belt filled with gold, and all he wanted to do was to get the hell away from this terrible countryside that the victorious rebels were scouring in search of fugitives from the Northern army. The rest of the Northern army had retreated toward Washington and the young man wanted to join them, but somehow he had got all turned about during the day of pouring rain and he guessed he had walked five miles west that day instead of north and now he was trying to work his way back northward.

He wore the blue coat of a Northern soldier, but he wore it unbuttoned and unbelted so that he could discard it at a moment’s notice and pull on the gray coat that he had taken from the corpse that had yielded him the hardtack. The dead man’s coat was a mite small, but the fugitive knew he could talk his way out of trouble if any rebel patrol did find and question him. He would be in more trouble if Northern soldiers found him for, though he had fought for the Yankees, he spoke with the raw accent of the Deep South, but deep in his pants pocket he had his papers that identified him as Captain William Blythe, second in command of Galloway’s Horse, a unit of Northern cavalry composed of renegade Southerners. Galloway’s Horse were supposed to be scouts who could ride the Southern trails with the same assurance as Jeb Stuart’s confident men, but the fool Galloway had taken them right into the battle near Manassas where they had been shot to hell by a Confederate regiment. Billy Blythe knew that Galloway was dead and Blythe reckoned Galloway deserved to be dead for having got mixed up in a full battle. He also guessed that most of Galloway’s men were probably dead and he did not care. He just needed to get away to the north and find himself another comfortable billet where he could stay alive until the war ended. On that day, Blythe reckoned, there would be rich pickings for southerners who had stayed loyal to the Union and he did not intend to be denied those rewards.